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Speaker 1: Jack JP laps Fan Solar System. This is Dicky Bird

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here from Australia. The date today is the twenty fourth

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of December Christmas Eve on twenty twenty four, and it

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is exactly ten years to the date that I first

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listened to an episode of The Lapsed Fan. That episode

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was the WrestleMania X seven episode. I can't remember how

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long it was. I want to say it was like

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seven hours long. It was probably not even that long,

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maybe just because it sounds like the short end of

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a twenty twenty four episode of The Lapsed Fan. Nevertheless,

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it is a day that I will remember forever, and

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it is an episode that I will remember forever. Funnily enough,

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I was actually put onto The Lapsed Fan through Twitter

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by someone called Simon Miller, and probably a lot of

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people know who this is. He's actually a wrestler now

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and for a long time was a contributor on What Culture,

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but at the time he was none of these things.

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At the time, I listened to a podcast where he

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was the editor of a video game website, and I

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listened to their podcast which he was frequently on, and

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I followed him on Twitter and on Twitter. Ten years

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ago today, he wrote, if you've ever had any interest

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in WWE slash F, you need to listen to the

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latest The Lapsed Fan on WrestleMania X seven. It's an

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audio documentary for your ears, and that piqued my interest

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a lot.

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Speaker 2: I checked it out.

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Speaker 1: And the one thing that I was immediately taken by

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was the duration of or should I say, the length

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and girth of the episode. Of course, you hear a

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lot from people saying, oh, it's too long, and da

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da dah and blah blah blah, But the truth is

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I was actually looking for a lengthy podcast at the time.

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I needed to listen to podcasts to go to sleep,

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and a lot of the podcasts that I listened to,

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you know, they were like thirty forty minutes long. And

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it wasn't that I couldn't get to sleep in thirty

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or forty minutes time, but the idea that I only

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had thirty or forty minutes to get myself to sleep

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created enough anxiety that I would not be able to

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get to sleep in that time, and often my phone

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would then play something else afterwards that I probably didn't

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want to listen to, so I would have to stop

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trying to get to sleep, put on the next thing,

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em ronson repeat, do this.

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Speaker 2: So whether it was.

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Speaker 1: Three hours, four hours, five hours, seven hours, you know,

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the truth is once I found this, I slept a

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lot better because I did not have any anxiety about

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what if I'm still awake at the end of this episode.

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But what was actually more interesting is what happened about

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a week later. Exactly a week later, my girlfriend at

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the time, who is now the mother of my children,

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she was living in.

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Speaker 2: Melbourne, had you know.

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Speaker 1: We had we had met each other, and then she

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decided that she was gonna move there, and we were

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still kind of like, you know whatever, seeing each other,

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and I was going to go and.

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Speaker 2: Visit her for New Year's Eve.

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Speaker 1: New Year's even Melbourne is absolutely delightful.

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Speaker 2: I recommend it to anybody.

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Speaker 1: It's a beautiful city and New Year's Eve there is

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it makes it even better.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, I was gonna like leave my job.

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Speaker 1: My contract on my job was like expiring in six

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months anyway, so I was like, well, you know, if

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we're still together by then, I'll just move to Melbourne.

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So I went down to visit her, spend a couple

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of days in Melbourne and New Year's Eve. And so

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New Year's Eve rolled around and we.

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Speaker 2: Went to a friend of hers place.

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Speaker 1: And the friend offered me some speed.

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Speaker 2: And I took that speed.

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Speaker 1: Because I, you know, if I'm going to do drugs,

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they got to be uppers, not downers. And it was

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a great time to be had. Went hard, drank my

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weight and alcohol, sniffed my nose off and in speed,

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and then you know, the sun started to come up

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and we were all caked out of our brains on

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the front porch of this house in Melbourne, and you know,

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you know that feeling. Maybe you don't, some people will

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know that feeling where it's just like you know that

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you know this is the end of the party, the

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end of the good time. It's coming to an end.

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You don't want to let go, but your body cannot

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give anything else.

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Speaker 2: And then her.

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Speaker 1: Friend turns to me and says, would you like a

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tab of LSD? And at this point of course I

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should have said no, because I've never had LSD before,

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and I've just been on a you know, twelve hour

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drinking and drug fueled binge.

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Speaker 2: Probably not a good idea. Did I say that? Fuck No?

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Speaker 1: I took that LSD and as soon as I took

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that LSD, I just said to myself.

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Speaker 2: I'm quite tired.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to just have a quick lie down, lay down.

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Immediately fell asleep, which I would not recommend doing after

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you take LSD before it's kicked in, because when I

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woke up, it was in full effect. And I cannot

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describe this feeling to anybody, because it's not just oh,

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I took LSD. I took LSD at the end of

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you know, abusing myself so much. The only way I

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can really describe it is that when I woke up,

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and I was asleep for a couple of hours, so

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I did not get enough sleep. But I woke up

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and I was in a hole. I was in a

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big hole in the ground that I could not get

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out of.

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Speaker 2: It was very.

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Speaker 1: Difficult to walk, it was very difficult to talk, it

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was very difficult.

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Speaker 2: To make any decisions or anything like that. And I had.

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Speaker 1: Made a very big mistake. So we get ourselves. You know,

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my girlfriend at the time, who had done the exact

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same thing, by the way.

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Speaker 2: So she was fucked to I was fucked.

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Speaker 1: It's like midday the day on New Year's Day, and

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we are just trying to survive, and we get ourselves

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an uber to get back to her place so that

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we can just collapse and.

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Speaker 2: Just try and ride this thing out.

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Speaker 1: I at one point told the uber driver to pull

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over because I thought I was going to die inside

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of the Uber, but my girlfriend is just like, hang on,

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it's okay. It was, you know, it basically like fear

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and loathing in Las Vegas, except like really lame and

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in the back of like a mini van on the

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way to just a a suburban in Melbourne. Get back

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to her place, and just thought, okay, it can relax,

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just chill out or whatever. But every time I closed

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my eyes, I would see things, and this made sleeping

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or recovering very difficult.

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Speaker 2: And this would last for forty eight hours.

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Speaker 1: So I was no better now that I was like

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in a bed trying to relax. In fact, it felt worse.

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I many times thought about just running onto the street,

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onto incoming traffic, but there was one thing that saved me.

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And I listened to this episode of WrestleMania X seven

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over and over and over again, and for whatever reason,

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the one thing that I remember the most is Paul

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Hayman not I don't specifically know what where, But when

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I just think back to this time, when I have

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you know, an LSD flashback or something to that point

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in time, it's Paul Hayman and his baseball cap and

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you know, skull, scullet ponytail that I can see during

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this time, and I just, yeah, I just listened to

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this episode and wrote out this extremely terrifying and terrible experience.

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And it's a shame because a lot of people I've

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talked to afterwards have been like, what are you talking about?

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LSD is great, and I'm like, yeah, I probably would

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have been great ifight have, you know, taken it with

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clear mind and healthy body, But I did not, and

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I have never done it since, just because there was

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a traumatic experience. But yeah, that was that was That

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was how the lapse fan got kicked off for me.

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And you know, there's it seems to be since then

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for me, like a story for every you know journey,

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some some Some journeys last quite a while and have

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a few different stories associated with them. But I think

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most importantly is that you've been there through times that

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were quite difficult in my life, that you know, it

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really came in handy something that genuinely. I don't think

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a thirty or forty minute podcast would ord do.

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Speaker 2: A review series.

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Speaker 1: On you know what happened on Raw last night? That's

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not probably gonna be great either. You know, these were

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like just they were really your podcasts were.

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Speaker 2: Really calming effect.

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Speaker 1: Because they just they took their time, you know, and

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they were just they just felt it just felt like home.

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Speaker 2: You know, other things as well, like I.

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Speaker 1: Needed very invasive sinus surgery and I was in a

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public hospital for seven days while they continued to pump

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me full of penicillin to make sure that, you know,

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that the infection didn't come back. And I shared a

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room with three other people and it was hell, but

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I had the LABS fan there. And this was during

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the WrestleMania journey still as well, and just remembering the

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episode of you.

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Speaker 2: Know, how how You'd.

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Speaker 1: Book I think it was how you'd book the nWo

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in WWE.

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Speaker 2: Or something to this effect.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's it's just something that I can't

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stop thinking about every time I think about a journey

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or something like the T and H journey. You know,

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my son was born during this and I even remember,

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you know, messaging my friends in my group chat with

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a photo of me holding my son. What did the

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caption say? It said dialed in. I mean that is

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a real, you know, screenshot, that is a real snapshot

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of time there. And you know, of course the first

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response to that was turkey dude. So you know, that's

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how much that you've that you've really penetrated everybody that

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you said that you were going to.

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Speaker 2: You say that you go hard and you penetrate, and

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you really have.

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Speaker 1: My ass and many other things, most importantly the other things.

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You know, So ten years, you know, a lot has

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changed for me in ten years. I feel like you

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guys are still exactly the same. Your podcasts are a

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bit longer, the journeys are a bit longer, but I

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feel like that's just more of an evolution than anything.

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And yeah, I just wanted to send this in on

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this exact date. I've been thinking about it for a while.

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Seeing you guys, I've seen a live show of yours

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and meeting you on person this year was a bucket

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list especially on the tenth year. That was a bucket

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list item that I'm so glad to have been able

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to achieve.

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Speaker 2: And you know, now I run.

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Speaker 1: Chop teas with some fucking hilarious looking TLF merchandise. But

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you know, even that is a way of me trying

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to open up a stream of revenue for the people

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who have kind of been there for me in the

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times that I've needed them. Not that they knew that,

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but you know, I run the chop Teas website to

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give back to people like yourselves for helping me not

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run in front of incoming traffic. So yeah, that's pretty

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much all I wanted to say. You know, big fan

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of everything that you do. Obviously, as you've heard, and

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you know, I guess I wanted to also shout out

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the solar system.

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Speaker 2: I think that there's really never been a.

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Speaker 1: Cooler group of people than the laps Fan Solar System.

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Speaker 2: And I interact with a lot more of them than I.

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Speaker 1: Used to because obviously when people have questions or just

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want to send feedback or have comments, you know, they

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always get in touch and they're always very very nice.

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And you know, thank you to anybody who's ever bought

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anything of chop Teas. I really appreciate the messages people

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saying just love the concept and the idea. And to

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anybody who's gotten this far into this rant, and if

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you're if you like the merch, I will say that,

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stay tuned because pretty much the first week of next

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year there is going to be a huge lapsed fan

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drop and some stuff that you will not want to

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you will not want to miss, so keep it dialed

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in and yeah, hopefully, hopefully, here's to another ten years guys.

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If not more, god knows what the fuck you'll be

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talking about then, but I guess there will always be

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more wrestling, So until then, Bye,